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Delete legacy /api/chatbot/chat route

Status​

DECIDED

Context​

After the April 6 chatbot unification decision, /api/chatbot/stream became the single production chatbot endpoint. The legacy /api/chatbot/chat route remained in the codebase with its Sonnet escalation logic intact — a live footgun.

The Sonnet escalation paths in /chat were confirmed as the root cause of $10–30/day in surprise API bills during QA runs. As long as the route existed, any agent or test runner that called the wrong endpoint would re-trigger the cost spike. There was no value in keeping dead code that carried active financial risk.

Decision​

Delete the /api/chatbot/chat route entirely on 2026-04-09.

The production chatbot is /api/chatbot/stream. All chatbot work — system prompts, HEAR protocol, tool deferral, test runners — MUST target the stream endpoint. This is a permanent deletion, not a deprecation.

Rationale​

  • Dead code with financial blast radius is more dangerous than dead code that simply wastes space. The escalation trigger in /chat could fire at any time if a caller hit the wrong endpoint.
  • No customers were using /chat — PewSearch had already switched to the CWA unified embed, and CWA had only ever used /stream in production.
  • Deleting removes the risk and makes the codebase unambiguous: there is exactly one chatbot endpoint.

Consequences​

  • Good: No accidental Sonnet escalation billing. Codebase is unambiguous. Future agents cannot mistakenly target the wrong endpoint.
  • Bad: If any external integration or test was pointed at /chat, it will get 404s. No such integrations were known at deletion time.
  • Reversible? Yes — the route can be recreated from git history. The decision is permanent but the code is recoverable. No customer data was deleted.

Alternatives considered​

  • Disable escalation, keep the route — rejected; keeping dead routes invites re-activation. Removal is unambiguous.
  • Redirect /chat to /stream — rejected; the escalation path was in the body handler, not just the route path. A redirect without stripping the escalation logic would have been a partial fix.
  • DECISION_LOG entry: ## 2026-04-09
  • Prior decision: 2026-04-06-chatbot-unification-stream-endpoint
  • Memory: ~/.claude/projects/C--dev/memory/feedback_chatbot_stream_is_production.md